Riddle Me This
by Snow and Spindrift
Summary: Lily goes skydiving, and Potter comes along for the ride. What happens when a giant lizard, failing laws of physics, and a riddle get involved? dedicated to Starry
1. Chapter 1

**Dedication: For Starry. And for Az, because I feel bad that Starry does, and always will, like me more ;)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. So sue me. **

Free falling is an experience unto itself. The courage it takes to fling yourself out of a gaping hole in the side of a high flying plane, and sink like a stone toward the flat mass of land far below, is almost unthinkable. To gather up all the trust you might possess, and put it in a tiny canvas filled sack that looks like if you pull the right strings it would unravel in a neon splay of orange threads in your hand, is a feat not attempted by many sane people. One of these such "parachutes" was stuffed into my arms as I stared out through the gaping door in the side of the small aircraft.

A blast of wind barreled through the open door, yanking my dark red hair all over my face. I glanced distractedly at the employee standing next to me. He wore a stark white nametag announcing "Hi, my name is Flynn" above "Freefall Skydiving Adventures" on a new red jumpsuit, a mop of mousy tousled hair, and an expression that suggested _he_ was the one about to jump, not me.

The pilot pivoted around in his chair long enough for me to catch a glimpse of a pair of keen ebony eyes set above a slightly crooked nose, and a cigar protruding from a scraggly gray beard. At a shout and a waving motion from him, Flynn blinked his wide brown eyes, started, and then scuttled up to the cockpit. Even with the roar of the wind and my Medusa-like hair tossing all over my head, I could still catch snippets of their conversation, although it was obvious that the two men thought they could not be overheard.

"Not sure...chute stuffed right...only one left...the rest...back at the base..." Flynn shrilled in a surprisingly high voice. The pilot glared at him for a moment, then quickly examined the parachute, muttering something. Finally he returned it to the nervous employee, bellowing something that sounded unnervingly like "going to have to work...need the money". Flynn's face held a hesitating look, and he looked toward the back of the plane. "Looks like there might be one rolling around back there, Cap'n..." he said slowly but audibly.

The pilot looked as though he was having a hard enough time trying to see through the swirling clouds enveloping the plane, and was not putting up well with being harassed by new employees. He consequently raised his already hoarse voice, and bellowed loud enough for my straining ears to pick up, "It's going to be your noggin rolling around if you don't get a move on!"

Flynn jumped as if he had been smacked and scuttled back across the floor toward me, holding the chute in front of him like a bomb while grabbing at the handles on the roof with his free hand. He started to help me into the small backpack. I tried to protest, yelling, "Are you sure this thing is completely safe?" but he just pulled me over to the door and motioned for me to grab one of the handles attached to the side. After a quick explanation of what to do, and when to pull the small handle that would let out the chute, he stood back and waited.

I opened my mouth, shut it, decided words were useless to describe my confusion, and settled for gaping at him. There was no way I was going to go though with this!

My trembling fingers groped at my neck, and I found the small wooden hawk that hung there on a cord. I remembered my great grandpa, once a wonderful craftsman, looking tiredly at me as he lay on his death bed, smiling, and pulling the smooth wooden bird out of his pocket.

"It will bring you luck, and aid you in the time of confusion when all other possible exits have been blocked." he mumbled. Then, in a voice that made me have to lean in to catch the scratchy words, he said, "It is... the key."

Though as my mom often said of him, "The elevator didn't always go the top floor", and our family had become accustomed to random murmurings of his. So at the time, I had let the comment pass and fade into my memory.

Another icy blast of wind brought me back to the present. Why I had let my friends talk me into this... well, I did know why. It was technically part of the Muggle Studies summer assignment: take part in an unusual Muggle sport or activity. And Potter (damn him) had dared me to do _skydiving_. And it simply went against my nature (forget my pride) to back away from that. Plus, when I had argued that skydiving took way too much time and planning and my summer schedule just didn't allow for it, he had volunteered to plan it all for me, and even to escort me up in the plane, supposedly to make sure I had a "safe flight". Hah. As if.

At the thought of him, I looked toward the back of the small aircraft. Potter was standing far enough away so as not to be sucked out the door, and hadn't heard a word of the conversation that had been going on. At my frantic look in his direction, however, he made his was carefully up the slanting floor.

"Whatcha waiting for, Evans?" he asked. "I even said I'd come with you, you'd better not let me down now." And grinning at me, he pulled another orange sack from behind his back and started to strap it on.

My mind had been reeling before. Now I stared at Potter, his black hair whipping all over his face, and half hiding his hazel eyes and brilliant smile. Brilliant, _evil_ smile, that is.

"Potter, are you out of your mind?!" I trilled. "One of us doing this is insane enough, why would you come too?"

"Why Evans, I told you I would go with you, didn't I?" He said carelessly, now swiping unsuccessfully at his face in an attempt to un-obscure his vision.

I gaped some more. I'm sure it looked very intelligent. His grin broadened.

"Right, on the count of 'jump', okay?" He yelled over the roar over the wind. "Ready—"

"Wait, James, I mean Potter, what—"

"JUMP!"

He grabbed my hand and we sprang from the aircraft.

I was hurtling toward the ground, not in the correct "skydiving position" with my stomach facing down, but tumbling and turning in every direction. One hand still frantically clung to the small wooden hawk at my throat, and the other had become separated from Potter's, and was now careened wildly in the air trying to gain me some balance. After a series of twists and turns, I managed to face more or less downward, and turned to the problem at hand.

Potter was watching me nonchalantly as we fell. "Okay, Evans, almost time to pull the plug!" he bellowed. "One, two... three!"

I yanked with all my might at the small handle flying back behind me.

Nothing happened.


	2. Chapter 2

A part of me was still completely blown away by the sheer exhilaration and confusion of free falling toward the ground. The rest of me quaked with irrepressible panic at what to do now. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and an extra chill swept through me in addition to the already present coldness in the air.

"POTTER! It didn't work!!"

Potter was tugging at his own chute handle helplessly. "I know, I know!" he said. "Well okay, I'm a witch and you're a wizard, we can just..."

I didn't even bother to correct him; I was so relieved he had thought of something. I saw him grope in his pocket for a minute, and then his face paled. "Lily!! They made us leave our wands at the base!"

I had completely forgotten about that "inspection for the safety of the crew" thing. What crew?! There were four total people on the plane, for crying out loud! I felt my control slipping, and about five seconds later, I did what I usually tend to do in stressful, Potter-involving situations.

I lost it.

"POTTER HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN I THOUGHT YOU HAD BEEN TO THIS SKYDIVING PLACE BEFORE AND SAID IT WAS FUN NOW WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WE'RE FALLING IN THE MIDDLE OF NOTHING AND WE ARE GOING TO _DIE_!"

And Potter did what he usually does in me-losing-my-head situations. "Ok Evans, we can figure this out, lets see—"

"POTTER I AM SURE YOU'RE PERFECTLY USED TO FALLING THROUGH THE AIR WHEN YOU FALL OFF YOUR BLOODY BROOMSTICK YOU ARROGANT LITTLE—"

But like so many of my other rants, I soon realized yelling was futile. My chaotic mind slowly let me focus on Potter' face. He was watching me with a strange expression, and I saw him open his mouth, then close it, then open it and say something, but the roar of the wind snatched his words and flung them away before I could pick them up.

"Potter, I can't hear you!" My mind was starting to panic again. I didn't want to die!

One hand was still closed around the wooden hawk at my throat. The bizarre, random thought that how a hawk flew was probably not so different than what I was doing now (but with possibly a bit more grace) flashed momentarily through my mind.

No sooner had this thought occurred to me than everything seemed to slow. I fell slower and slower toward the ground below, and my hair, which had been whipping wildly behind me, began to fall limply around my sweaty face. The brilliant light of the sun also began to dim, and the clouds, which had been swirling in a pearlescent fashion around me and Potter slowed to a halt.

Thoroughly confused, I looked around, and realized that all other movement had slowed almost to a standstill also. Potter, still hanging in the air beside me, suddenly looked like a movie that had been put in slow motion. But his eyes were still trained on mine, and as he said, "Lily, what—" it was not the wind that took his voice, for there was no wind. I could still see his mouth slowly forming words, but no sound came out. The light was still dimming, and just before it went out altogether, a movement off to my left caught my eye.

A red-brown feather drifted gracefully down through the frozen gray sky, and then the last rays of sunlight, trying desperately to penetrate the silver haze, were snuffed out.

My eyes searched desperately for a source of light, a pinpoint of brightness, anything to break the new darkness that was so complete it seemed impossible. Finally I closed my eyes to save myself the strain.

The need to breath seemed to have vanished, along with my sense of time. I had no idea how long we hung there, suspended in nothing, with only the idea of my slowly beating heart thrumming away in my chest.

Suddenly, a brilliant light erupted in front of my closed eyelids. Around the same time, the laws of physics took effect again and I crashed down onto a hard, smooth surface. The need for oxygen also returned, but when I tried to draw breath, I found none available.

Jumping up, I looked wildly around. A voice croaked from somewhere, "Gate 2389 in from Earth, Sector 12." I made a sort of croaky gasping noise. There was a momentary pause, then the same voice said, "Oh that's right, Earthlings breathe."

My head was swimming. Lights popped in front of my eyes.

The voice wheezed, "Let's see... atmospheres... Earth... oxygen... nitrogen... oh what else is there? Stupid computer. Oh, here we are."

Air flowed into my lungs, and my head swam with the sudden intake of oxygen. For a moment, I stood there, panting, and let my confused mind catch up with the rest of me. When the spots that danced in front of my eyes dissipated enough to let me see something, I looked around.

I stood on what seemed to be a smooth cement floor, inside a circle of bright lights. The sudden brightness dazzled me for a minute, but when my eyes adjusted, I noticed a drawing on the floor.

It looked like a ven-diagram; two greenish white circles overlapped slightly to form two large sections, and a smaller one in the middle. On either side section a large marble was imprinted into the cement, one a dun red, and the other a blue sphere with green sections that looked strangely like Earth. But it was the middle section that caught my attention.

Pulsing with a dim blue light, a flying hawk was stuck in the floor. It looked familiar, and a second later, I realized it was the wooden one from my necklace. It must have snapped off. Looking up, I saw I was in a square room that made me think of the inside of an old, empty garbage can. Like someone filled it with trash, then dumped all the contents out, but left little bits of grease and grime sticking to the walls and floor.

There was a groan from behind me. _James! _I thought, spinning around.

He was picking himself up from the floor, and upon setting his glasses back on his nose, he caught sight of me. "Lily! Are you alright? What was that?"

I shook my head, unable to speak. Instead I looked around for the source of that voice. The walls were bare, except for a softly glowing square directly in front of us. I stepped forward for a closer look, and realized it was a crude, very simple map. An arrow labeled "You Are Here" pointed at a large chamber, with what appeared to be a slightly smaller room adjoining.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump, before I turned to see it was Potter. He studied the text below the arrow and muttered, "How does it _know_?"

I stared at him for a moment, but before I could respond I noticed a small arch in the wall opposite the map. "Potter, this way." I hissed.

We walked slowly across the stone floor, our footsteps echoing in the empty room. Potter reached sideways and took my hand, and under other circumstances I would have snatched it back. But the feel of his larger hand gently but firmly holding mine was strangely reassuring. So I let it slide. Just this once, of course.

It was too dark in the next room to see from the distance at which we stood. I looked sideways at Potter, and he met my green eyes with his hazel ones. Then by some unspoken telekinetic agreement, we stepped through the archway into the other room.


	3. Chapter 3

It was dim, the sole light source a blue orb suspended above a crude desk crouching in front of us. Behind the desk sat a big lizard, a dull brownish green color. The head angled back in a dinosaur-like way, and ended in a serrated spike that made me take a small step back. Small, sharp teeth grinned unpleasantly, and bleak, black eyes watched me intently from behind round glasses that perched in an "old lady" way on its pointed nose.

"So. You are the earthling." it rasped. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

I was confused at first as to why it was addressing Potter and me as one person, then realized James was still in the shadows behind me. He seemed to see this also, and moved beside me into the light of the orb. This apparently was the wrong thing to do.

The lizard let out a funny noise somewhere in between a squawk and a gasp, and fell backward off of its stool. "Why are there two of you?!" it said, it's previously low, raspy voice jumping about two octaves.

I was completely at loss as to anything to say, let alone anything that might live up to my apparent reputation as "the earthling". I looked at Potter's face, and saw that he seemed to be feeling something similar. So I said nothing.

When it realized I wasn't going to respond, the lizard sighed, a sound that I likened to someone gargling with a mouthful of pebbles instead of water. It climbed awkwardly back onto its stool, clicking its tongue, and said in its normal low voice, "Fine, if you're going to be the quiet, smart types, or the mute inane ones, let's get on with it." It raised its chin at me and added, "For your sake, I hope you're the former." It raised a jagged claw and pointed at me. "You. Forward."

My poor brain couldn't take much more of this. James tightened his hand, which still enclosed mine. This small comfort encouraged my trembling voice. "Uh, sorry?"

"Ven aquí, front and center, come here! Whatever the Earth term is." It rolled its shiny black eyes at the ceiling. "The kind of _khakfitz_ I put up with these days..." And it pulled a piece of yellowy paper out of a drawer in the desk, muttering to itself alternately in English and some other language I didn't understand but that sounded like it was trying to chew popcorn kernels. "I ask for one Earthling, ONE... and they send me two, probably not even the right ones... why I put up with _Ftzxknits_ like them I don't know... but someone's got to do it..."

James, who had been standing silently next to me, suddenly spoke up. "Excuse me?"

The lizard looked up. "Yes?"

"Who are you, and what are we doing here? Wherever 'here' is."

It surveyed him with a beady stare that would have made me flinch, but which James countered with a furrowed brow and a stony expression of his own. The lizard seemed slightly taken aback.

"Well well, it seems that Earth has produced creatures of some merit after all," it said through its pointy teeth. "Alas, brave one, you are not even supposed to be here." It paused and narrowed its eyes. "'Here' is on Zarta. The Trial Planet. And I am Khalaf."

Before I had time to wonder what that was supposed to mean, its gaze shifted to me. "You, however, _are _supposed to be here," Khalaf said. It picked up the yellow paper and immediately began to drone a length of speech that sounded important, if not extremely rehearsed. "Your family has been chosen to carry the key for your planet." its level gaze flicked up at me for a moment, "In this case: Earth. Each planet has a key to here, and one family is chosen to be the _jakfiltv_, or key-keeper, until the right time comes. The key was passed to you, as you are the most recent descendant of your family. Your key is the link between your world and this one. Every planet also reaches a point where its dominant species may fail, and when that time comes, one of the species is sent here to be tested. You are the chosen Earthling." Khalaf stopped abruptly when it noticed my blank look, and said, "Are you getting all this?"

"Um, I think so" was my intelligent response. A part of me was thoroughly confused at what it was saying, but at the same time it felt right, like a vague feeling of _déjà vu_. Then the other part of me slapped the first, and told it to get a grip and wake up from this very random, very realistic dream. To buy myself time, I said, "What sort of test?"

Khalaf grinned, showing a row of pointy yellow teeth. "Glad you asked. It is a puzzle, and all you have to do is solve it. Answer right, and your planet is granted another large slot of time in which to reorganize itself, and will be safe from complete destruction for a long while. But if you answer wrong, and the human race will perish in whatever way it would have, only a lot sooner." The Zartan focused its beady black eyes sharply on mine and it said, "So, are you ready?"

_Ready? _I thought. _For what? _I decided I was as ready as I would ever be, and told Khalaf so. It nodded, then turned to a box that sat on the desk in front of it: presumably a computer. It started to click the screen with one scaly talon, but then looked back at James and me. "And you, other Earthling," it addressed James, "No interfering."

James started to say something, but Khalaf interrupted, its voice strained, "I don't care how much valor you might possess, or how much help your friend might need, you will remain silent!" it hissed.

James never was good at keeping his mouth closed when he needed to. "Lily can take care of herself!" he defended.

This unfortunately was the last straw for the Zartan. It hissed, "_kraftzix!_" and a gash appeared on my leg, running from my mid-thigh to my ankle. Despite myself, I cried out from the pain.

"Oh, _jashkiv_," Khalaf muttered. "Missed. Ah well, now you have put your friend in pain, and will do better to keep quiet!"

James looked devastated, and looked like he was making a huge effort not to do something, but managed to remain silent.

Khalaf looked back at me and asked, "Now, Earthling, are you ready?"

"Yes," I managed, through the terrible burn in my leg. Khalaf nodded, and tapped the screen of its computer. Then it looked back at me and recited:

A cousin to night, but not to day,

A wind trapped leaf that has gone astray,

The first of the first, the last of the last,

The fate of a soldier whose flag flies half-mast,

What man has achieved, but will never master,

The goal of the tailed diamond, speeding faster and faster,

The dream of the new bird, and memoirs of the ace,

The one possible exit that leads into space,

The golden bird rises from its fiery lair,

With its head in the clouds and its song in the air,

The path of the fair one, too beautiful to be,

The joy of the one that is the key.

A respectful silence followed the words. Then the lizard handed me a copy of the riddle written on another thin piece of yellowing paper that its futuristic, rusty printer had just spat out and said, "Take your time. You have twenty minutes." It leaned back on its stool, tapped a button on its screen, and a quiet ticking echoed around the room.


	4. Chapter 4

My brain locked. _Twenty minutes? This_ _is impossible!_ But thinking like that wasn't going to help me solve it. I looked down at the paper. _The first of the first, and last of the last._ _The fate of the soldier..._ Maybe that meant the first letter in "first" and the last in "last". So maybe it started with an "f" and ended with a "t".

Maybe. I was hanging on a lot of "maybe's" here. _Just read the rest of the riddle before you become completely hysterical_.

But what was the "fate of the soldier"? Death? I would get back to that. I looked at the next lines: _The goal of the tailed diamond, speeding faster and faster_. What was the "tailed diamond"? And "what man has achieved". That could be lots of things. What did a "tailed diamond" do? The thought crossed my mind that maybe it meant the _shape_ of a diamond, not the jewel. _The tailed diamond..._ _a kite?_ I wondered. It made sense, but I would have to read the rest.

_The path of the fair one, too beautiful to be._ The fair one... what could that be? My first thought was of a blond person, or some one with "fair hair". But that didn't sound right. "Too beautiful to be..." I muttered. A sudden memory of my mother flashed into my head. When I was small, my dad would tell me she was an angel, too beautiful to be human. _Could that be it? What's an angel's path, though? Through the sky, I guess. To heaven..._

The raspy voice of Khalaf brought my attention back to the room. "Two minutes left, earthling. Think quickly, now."

My mind screamed, but I forced the sound to stay in my head and not burst out my mouth. _The joy of the one that is the key. _An old, wrinkled hand reached into my memory, a wooden hawk resting on the palm. "It is the key..." echoed my grandfather's voice. _The hawk is the key. But what is a hawk's joy?_ My brain screamed again in frustration. The abrasive ticking of the computer clock sounded faster, matching pace with my pounding heart.

_A wind trapped leaf... something that starts with an "f"...A cousin to night...The fate of a soldier... a hawk's joy...what is a hawk's joy?!_

_Flight._

I froze. That was it. The goal of the tailed diamond, the path of the angel, the fate of the soldier as he flew up to heaven, it all fit! I drew a sharp breath. The lizard was regarding me with a satisfied expression, swiveling in little half circles on its spindly stool. It looked like it had quite recovered from its outburst. "And the light bulb goes on", it said quietly.

"It's flight! That's the answer." I almost yelled.

It smiled. "Congratulations, earthling, you just bought your planet another couple hundred millennia." It tapped something into its computer with the unconcerned air of a doctor recording a patient that just passed an eye exam. "You may leave now".

I blinked. The pain in my leg, gone unnoticed in those twenty minutes, suddenly returned at full force, and I staggered. James grabbed my shoulder and slid one arm around my waist to hold me up.

"Oh yes, so sorry about that, we Zartans have a very short temper," Khalaf said. "Here, let me fix that." And with a muttered, "_Khaffis_" my leg healed, the blood stopped, and the pain vanished.

But upon rolling up my jeans to see the damage, I noticed something. A scar, white, narrow and very obvious, ran the length of my leg. "Oh yes," Khalaf said slowly, "that tends to happen. Nothing to be done about the scar. Sorry."

I looked up at the lizard, then at James, who was staring in shock at Khalaf. He took a breath, his face carefully controlled, but I could sense the volcano about to blow. I stood and grabbed his hand. "James, lets get out of here."

At the touch of my hand on his, his eyes focused on me, and he nodded. And with a last look at Khalaf, I turned around and started to pull him back through the archway into the larger room. Then I realized something, and turned back around to the Zartan, who was still regarding us over its round specs. "Um, how do we leave?"

Khalaf looked up from its computer. "You have to leave the way you came. When you were falling, did you not liken yourself to your talisman? So now all you have to do is relive the feeling. Oh, and take your key on your way out." It tilted its chin down slightly and gave us a look over its glasses. "Oh, and one more thing: neither of you may tell anyone about this ordeal. Got it?" James and I nodded. It returned its attention to the screen. "Good. Now get on with it, we're on a tight schedule today. Three other planets are doomed."

Seeing no other option, I exchanged a glance with James and walked back through the archway.

Before I could think what to do, James (_wait, when did he become James? He's Potter. He's always been Potter. I am so confused right now...)_ POTTER grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. "Lily, do you realize what you just did?"

I looked at him. "Uh, saved our skins?"

He nodded jerkily. "Not just _our_ skins, Lily, the skins of _everyone on Earth._ You just saved the world."

I laughed into the suddenly slightly uncomfortable silence. "Well thanks, I feel loved."

Potter held my eyes with a level, steady gaze. "You are," he said softly.

My stomach, already doing an acrobatic routine for some reason, flipped again. I looked away from him, away from those penetrating eyes.

"And we're not supposed to tell anyone... what are you going to tell people you got that scar?" Potter asked.

"I don't know," I said quickly. "I was shaving and I nicked myself."

"_Shaving_? With what, a meat cleaver?" said Potter incredulously.

I flapped my hands in a helpless gesture that I'm sure helped my psychotic appearance a lot. "I don't know, I'll think of something." I trained my eyes on the wooden figure still stuck in the floor. "So um, what did Khalaf say we had to do?"

Potter (_okay okay, I give_) JAMES kept his eyes on me as he said, "Relive the feeling."

"Right," I said quickly, striding over to the hawk and prying it out of the floor. "Right. So... here goes." I closed my eyes. After a moment I heard James give a small sigh, come over and stand next to me in the circle.

I tried to imagine the feeling of free fall. I tried to feel the wind blasting in my face so strongly it was hard to breathe properly. I could feel the crispness of the air as it whipped my hair back.

I cracked my eyelids open. Nothing had happened. James stood still next to me, but his eyes were closed now. "James, why isn't it working?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and blinked a few times. "I don't know... I think we _both_ have to "relive the feeling". I'm not very good at imagining something starting from nothing..."

The glow from the tiny searchlights around us reflected lightly off of his glasses and lit his face with a dim light. Looking into it, I got an idea. I stepped closer to him. "Why don't I give you something to start with, then...?"

His hazel eyes, already inches from mine due to the close confines of the circle, widened a little, then I saw something connect behind them. He started to smile a little, and bent his head down to mine, as I tilted my chin up. I felt the brush of his black hair, surprisingly soft, on my forehead before he kissed me.

My stomach flipped again, alike to the feeling of freefall. And smiling against the soft touch of his lips on mine, I felt a breeze start to pick up.

The circle of lights on the floor suddenly seemed to expand in all directions, and I opened my eyes. James' face was still inches from my own, his arms still around me and his eyes still closed. A vast expanse of blue stretched out in all directions. We hung there, still motionless in the sky.

A bird's shriek made me look quickly around to the left. I saw a lightning fast streak of red and brown feathers dart downwards, just as the world unfroze. Once again I was plummeting toward the ground. James looked left also, as we searched for the source of the cry, clinging to each other, diving headlong toward a rapidly approaching planet. With a jerk of my stomach, I remembered the definitional parachutes. Panic raced through me again, and I let go of James with one hand to pull desperately at the handle on my backpack.

Something drifted up to fall beside us, and looking over, I realized it was a hawk. I was momentarily snared by its amber gaze, watching the golden rays of light that burst outward in the perfect circle of its eye. The two of us held eye contact for what seemed an eternity, and when the hawk finally pulled away in a screech and a flap of its beautiful wings, I felt strangely calm.

I also felt my stomach start to catch up with the rest of me, and the wind blowing less harshly in my face. A movement above me caught my eye, and looking up, I saw the neon orange oval of my parachute splaying out behind me. James was floating beside me, an expression of disbelief on his face. His own parachute was billowing out above him.

I just tilted my head back and laughed. Logical explanations were not high on my list of priorities today.

I watched the sun break through the cloudy haze and the orange oval of my chute. Just above it, the hawk circled with slow grace. Leaning my head back, I smiled up at it, watching as it banked lightly and plummeted toward the ground in sudden free fall, then spread its copper wings and soared away into the indigo sky.


End file.
